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RIM had petitioned the Federal Circuit for a rehearing of previous rulings,
where some NTP claims were accepted.

At a trial in the District Court in 2002, NTP successfully asserted 16 claims
of five patents against RIM. In its ruling today, the three-judge panel of the
Federal Circuit effectively reversed the District Court's ruling of infringement
on six of the 16 claims, and found that RIM does not infringe in those six
claims.

RIM said that, consistent with its prior ruling, the Federal Circuit also
vacated the District Court's finding of infringement of an additional three of
the 16 patent claims because the District Court erred in construing their scope,
and remanded to the District Court for further proceedings based on the new
claim construction.

"Infringement of the remaining seven claims of the NTP patents was affirmed
in today's ruling," RIM stated today.

"However, two of those claims have already been rejected by the US Patent and
Trademark Office in its initial rulings in re-examination proceedings, and the
other five claims (relating to a single patent) remain the subject of an ongoing
director-initiated reexamination proceeding, in which an initial ruling is
expected soon."

If the patent dispute returns to the District Court on remand proceedings,
RIM said it expects that NTP will ask the court to enter an injunction similar
to the one previously granted (and subsequently vacated by the new Federal
Circuit decision) that could prohibit it from "providing BlackBerry services and
from using, selling, manufacturing or importing its handhelds and software in
the US".

"While RIM maintains that an injunction is inappropriate given the facts of
the case and recent doubts raised as to the validity of the patents in question,
it ultimately will be up to the court to decide these matters and there can be
no assurance of a favorable outcome of any litigation," the Canadian firm
stated.